Javier Clift photographed the Korean Friendship Bell at Angels Gate Park in San Pedro on June 15. The bell, dedicated in 1976, was a gift from South Korea in celebration of the bicentennial of the United States. In the foreground is a wooden mask. Each week, we're featuring photos of Southern California submitted by readers. Share your photos on our Flickr page or reader submission gallery . Follow us on Twitter or visit latimes.com/socalmoments for more on this photo series.

June 7, 2013 | By Alexander Nazaryan, Special to the Los Angeles Times

Back in 2007, Elliott Holt was the recipient of a curse: New York Magazine deemed the young writer one of its "Stars of Tomorrow. " In Manhattan's claustrophobic literary world, expectations were immediately raised and daggers surely sharpened. Holt's debut novel, "You Are One of Them," has finally arrived, and it turns out to be an odd hybrid of bildungsroman and thriller, borrowing as much from the coming-of-age stories of Judy Blume as it does from the spy novels of John le Carré.

Set in a small rural town in Canada's Northwest Territories, where cold and decay are constant companions, "The Lesser Blessed" is a little indie gem that begins with a warm bath. Larry Sole (Joel Evans) is submerged, silent, an enigma with soulful eyes. The silence is deceptive. There is a fire raging underneath. It begins to surface in flashbacks as he lies there deathly still. All we know at the beginning is that there was a blaze and a fight with a man and that both left the teenager scarred.

Rampant piracy, government censorship and foreign quotas can make China a highly unpredictable and frustrating market for Hollywood. But one of China's top entertainment executives has some homespun advice: Make friends and be patient. "To succeed in China, it's like the old the Chinese saying: Before business, make friends," said Jerry Ye, chief executive of Wanda Cinemas, at an international panel on the opening day of Cinemacon, the annual convention for the theater industry held in Las Vegas.

For one championship-winning team owner from Boston, the name Jerry Buss conjures memories of two sports superstars whose rivalry from opposite coasts defined an era. Magic vs. Bird? No, Chrissy vs. Martina. The man from Boston is Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, whose first foray into professional sports was as owner of the Boston Lobsters of World Team Tennis from 1975-78. Kraft signed Martina Navratilova after she defected from Czechoslovakia, and after Buss, then owner of the Los Angeles Strings, had made a splash by signing Chris Evert.

It is unfair to compare a relatively anonymous, low-budget film to a high-end Hollywood production such as Steven Spielberg's Oscar showpiece "Lincoln," but someone decided to release "Saving Lincoln" at this time, which means, well, they asked for it. The film purports to be about the friendship between Lincoln and Ward Hill Lamon, a friend and colleague from Lincoln's days of Illinois lawyering who went with him to Washington to function as...

BIRMINGHAM, Mich. - When Ron Artest first came to town I ignored him, wanting nothing to do with a wacko. "A lot of people do that," Artest says. I thought he was just a thug. "I tell people who call me a thug you're calling the right person a thug," he says. "I was raised to be a thug. " Others insist he's a sweetheart, although Ron Artest and sweetheart don't really seem to go together. But here we are in a Detroit suburb, the wacko thug more sensitive, insightful and sweet than advertised.

Casting Philip Seymour Hoffman in the role of Lancaster Dodd in "The Master" was surely a no-brainer for director Paul Thomas Anderson, who has been friends with the Oscar-winning actor for 17 years and has cast him in five of his films (including a small role in Anderson's debut feature, "Hard Eight"). And Hoffman himself is effusive when talking about his good friend, who hired him for the first time in 10 years for "The Master. " "We met when I was like, 25," says Hoffman. "We talked a lot and became fast friends, and we've been friends ever since.

Sprawled out on the floor of a New England home, surrounded by yellowing photographs and a flag that once rode in the presidential motorcade, appraiser Dan Meader leafed through history. A folder labeled “Texas Trip” piqued his attention. He opened it and found documents dated the week John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas' Dealey Plaza in 1963. He scanned the notes taken by Kennedy special assistant David Powers. “Three shots,” he read, and then, “I carried my president onto the Air Force One in the casket.” He got goose bumps.

Everyone deserves life with dignity in their final years, whether you dug ditches or played tennis on the world's most famous stages. Gertrude "Gussy" Moran did the latter. She also got that deserved dignity because of the extraordinary kindness of a woman possibly as quirky as Moran was herself — this other woman wears a $15,000 Rolex that she painted purple with nail polish to hide the gold. We shall call her Lovey Jurgens, because that's what she will allow us to call her. Nothing else.